The Bittersweet Between My Teeth
by crystalswordEnthusiast
Summary: "Bart can I ask you a selfish question?" "Shoot. "What does it feel like? Being in love with me I mean." "It feels," He takes a deep breath. "It feels pretty shitty."


"Heard you and Cassie broke up." He starts casually, breaking the silence. "Looks like you're officially back on the market." He doesn't let it show how much this pleases him.

"Yeah, it wasn't working out." Jaime shrugs, and takes another drag of his cigarette.

"Care to share?" He asks disinterestedly. He's trying to pry without making it too obvious.

"Eh, we both just kind of agreed it was easier when we were friends, and the dating part complicated things and made everything hard." He shrugs his shoulders. "When we were dating, she was my girl, but she wasn't my friend." He throws the cigarette on the ground and crushes it with his foot. "Does that make sense?"

"Not really."

"It's like," he takes a breath and runs his hands through his hair, and Bart tried to focus not on the way that gives him a sexy disheveled look, but on his words instead. "For as long as I can remember, we'd been best friends her and I. And for as long as we'd been best friends, people had just sort of assumed we were more. It was funny at first, because to me she was the messy haired blonde girl that wore light blue eye shadow and red sparkly skirts, and to her I was the long haired boy that said words in Spanish she didn't understand, and the idea of dating was absurd. But then it got to a point where it wasn't so funny anymore, it just got weird. Should we be dating? Everyone else thought we should've been, so, maybe we should do it. So we did. But it complicated everything. I couldn't make fart jokes around her, and she couldn't burp in front of me, and we had to hold hands and I had to kiss her cheek and we had to live with the weird pressure everyone put on the best friends turned lovers. We loved-love each other, but it isn't the right kind of love. She's like a sister to me, the kind of sister I can tease and be teased by, she isn't the girl I want to spend the rest of my life with. We both just kind of agreed that it, we, we're heading nowhere fast, and it was better to break it off and be friends before it got to a point where we couldn't be anything." He sighs again.

"You don't sound too happy for someone who just got out of a crap relationship."

"I don't know, it wasn't all bad. There were the occasional moments where it was me and her, and it was like it was only us in the world, and we'd talk and laugh. It's like, even though the relationship was all just some appeasement for the people it was still real. It was fake, and broken, and destined for failure from the start, but the memories are here. The worst part is, is it's going to take a while for us to be able to be like we were before. I'll miss her, but we both need to find who we are without each other before we can be friends again." He smiled despite himself. "I'm glad she won't be completely alone though, she's got Tim, and you know how he feels about her. He'll be there for her."

"Well," Bart says scratching at his nose. "While you go about trying to find yourself, you won't be alone either. I'll be right beside you the entire time." He doesn't dare reach out and grab Jaime's dangling hand, even though he wants nothing more than to do just that.

"Yeah." Jaime smiles, a genuine smile. "I know I'll have you. I'll always have you. That's something I'll always be grateful for, having you as a best friend."

"Yeah, friend." He says, and he winces when he realizes he said that out loud.

"Bart, we've gone over this before, I like you, but you're just too"

"Young? Yeah yeah, whatever. I don't need your rejection every time I express a little feeling towards you."

"It's just," Jaime squints and looks up at the sky, at the setting sun. It's a beautiful mix of pink and orange and black, and it's probably the only good thing that comes out of the pollution fro the local factory. "You're my friend Bart. And I love you I don't know way kind of love it is, if its family love or the other kind, I don't know if I've ever been in love, and maybe if I have to question it then its not the romantic kind of love. I mean, when I fall in love, shouldn't I know it! Shouldn't the feeling be so overwhelming and suffocation and I should just know its love?" He slides down the wall, and lets his feet dangle over the curb.

"I don't know, I mean, I love you, and I haven't always known. I've loved you a lot longer than I've known it, and once I realized I loved you, I realized how long I've loved you." He turns his head away, and watches as a little girl screams gleefully, begging her father to push her higher, so she can touch the trees. He feels envious of her. How he wishes to be that young and innocent once more. To not have to know the things he does now, and feel the things he's felt. Like heartbreak, and pain and suffering. "I don't think love really has any set way of doing things. Maybe you'll just know, and maybe it'll take you a while before you know." He kicks at a small rock by his foot.

"Bart can I ask you a selfish question?"

"Shoot.

"What does it feel like? Being in love with me I mean."

"It feels," He takes a deep breath. "It feels pretty shitty." Jaime chuckles quietly, and Bart can't help but smile. "It feels like someone's punched me in the gut every time I look at you, and every time I had to see you with Cassie, and imagine you hugging and kissing her it conflicted me. I was happy for you, and mad at myself, for not hating her because honestly, how could I hate Cas, and I was so broken and hurt because I wanted that to be me."

"Sounds like a lot of pain for nothing."

"It wasn't all for nothing. There were some good parts, the times when it was me and you, together, and for a moment it felt like maybe you liked me back, it was great. When you treated me like I was the only person in the world, and you smiled that smile of yours, it was like someone had taken my heart and strapped a rocket to it and sent it to the moon. The times when you held my hand and laughed at my jokes, it was pure bliss. You're worth it Jaime, the good times with you are worth the painful ones."

Jaime puts his face in his hands. "I'm sorry Bart, I'm so sorry. I want to feel that way about you, but I'm not sure how I feel about anything right now. I need some time, please. I need to think about my feelings, and give them time to grow. I want to love you the way you love me."

Bart nods slowly, and pushes off the wall. "I can't wait forever Jaime. I love you, and I'm in love with you, and I always will be, but I won't sit around for you. I'll die for you Jaime, but I won't live for you."

Jaime says nothing for a long while. "I love you, that's for sure, now I just need to figure out which love it is."

"Hey her-man-oh, this conversation is getting a little too deep for me." He holds out his hand to help Jaime up, ignoring the tingle of the feel of the other boys hand in his own. "Let's go do something stupid. I'll put a mentos in the lid of a diet coke and give it to Dick. You can reprimand me for it afterwards."

Jaime laughs, and keeps hold of Bart's hand, and Bart thinks maybe this could work. It'll be messy and bumpy, and hard, but it's not worth it if you don't have to fight for it, and he's willing to fight. Maybe things will turn out right in the end.


End file.
